First substantial rain in our water tank and home alone

Rained off and on last night from around 17:30 onwards. Read 44mm this morning and appeared ~50mm new rain in the tank. While our spring still flows as usual — the grass has gone brown and even many trees are showing stress with curling leaves. This amount of rain, while not extravagant, will revive them.

Nick is still in Sydney and working from the AURA office today. It was Fair Day weekend — so plenty to do and see and always great to catch up with friends. While I enjoy the tranquility, sadly, that leave me to take care of his kids… Little Joe is always fun, as he dances around playfully. Jam is sweet, yet slow to walk along and kind of slow in general. Tik, however, remains the alpha goat. She is showing the most these days and hopefully will birth soon. They are entertaining yet quite a lot of time and work to maintain.

I spent much of the day working on the pens near the greenhouse for chickens and goat containment. I was able to reuse a portion of the old fence wire and chicken wire mesh. The post had to be driven, holes dug, trees fell (we have an abundance of standing dead wood in our forest — so harvesting them makes the forest safer during wind storms and great fence posts!) and finally, tamping the wooden posts into the ground. Its hard work — yet satisfying and certainly helps with fitness!

Bob the kookaburra perched in a tree nearby for a while to watch over what I was doing. Seems he must have been satisfied as he flew off after a while. I also found a new tree species… this, a massive near 20m/60ft tree with vibrant green leaves (even in the dry) and fruit that reminds me of chestnuts — yet about 10 times the size! Funny to hear them drop to the ground every few minutes — guess they must be ready. Must find out what they actually are before eating…

The skies were clear much of the day yet as the sun advanced to set for the day, the dark flint colour appeared to the North West and a fantastic pinkish orange glared brightly towards the East. It was a stellar sunset period.

About Us

YUNDA Stead is an eco-centric homestead offering life & work experience in sustainability, ecology, climate education, permaculture / biodynamic / nutritional agriculture as well as music, art, bodywork, and meditation retreats in the beautiful Noosa Hinterlands of Sunshine Coast region in Queensland Australia.

We have majestic vistas of the surrounding Noosa Beach region and the northern end of the Sunshine Coast hinterland. There are six peaks visible from our front entry including: Mount Cooran, Pinbarren, Cooroora, Mount Boulder, Tinbeerwah, and more…

Our 50 acre property is a third natural rainforest, a third regenerated native forest, and a third grassland with orchards, gardens and amenities. It’s been naturally organic since 1984 following 40 years as dairy pastureland, 40 years as a banana plantation, and a timber harvest in 1909.

We try to sustainably re-purpose and thoughtfully leverage all our available resources to grow… through the efforts of helpers we create, through the generosity of supporters we are better able to thrive. Want to help?